Trinkets, Treasures and Other Miscellanies
by Celestos
Summary: A collection of short drabble-like ficlets and short stories that just don't seem to fit in anywhere else. Many pairings, many genres, many ideas. Requests always accepted and wanted, via reviews, private messages and my Tumblr inbox.
1. Jounouchi x Mai, A Trick of the Light

**Short Polarshipping drabble, requested by aquaburst07 on tumblr.**

 _ **Polarshipping, Jounouchi x Mai. Kind of deep. It's been two years.**_

* * *

 **A Trick of the Light**

Light, he thinks, has always had that effect on people. He had stared at the sun once, when he was only half as tall as he is now. He was told he was lucky he can still see.

The sun sets in the distance, sky splashed amber. Gold streams. _The sun,_ he thinks. _It's the damn sun. I'm seeing things._

Under the shine, her hair is warmth and fire, her eyes dark as always. He'd never forgotten her gaze, firm and determined, hard as onyx and sharp as diamond, brows pushed together in the midst of a duel she was unwilling to lose. She had been a fierce woman. She'd been savage. _Sexy._

It's a trick of the light.

Is she still the same then, here and now, in front of him, Duel Disk brandished like a blade on her arm, or is this a mirage?

 _A trick of the light._

"It's been two years." She sounds the same. He doesn't speak.

She takes five steps, and he counts every one, the clicks of her heels on the pavement ringing in his ears. _It's the damn light. I'm hearing things now._

He makes out the details, watching her come closer and unable to tear his gaze away - her shoes are new, and she's not worn that dress in any of the magazines, and her eyes, and her hair -

 _This is a trick, I said I'd forget her -_

He is the guilty party, the one who didn't sleep for days and the one who still hoped and the one who'd whispered her name too many times for someone who said they'd forget all about her. He thought she'd forgotten. He'd wanted them both to forget.

He had made that promise, a day after the last time he'd seen her. It had been sunset back then.

"Jounouchi." She says his name then. He wants to say hers. His throat is dry. Warm weather. _The light -_

"M-Mai." He says it out loud, voice stumbling and failing midway, as if he'd feared it. He'd promised to never say it again. He'd promised it once, then again, then twice more again, three times in one night, once more the day after…

The silence is foolish. They're both alone in worlds of their own, two steps apart, and one is on fire. He's seeing things, and hearing them, and it's all too good to be true -

He puts on a smile. "It has been two years."

A cloud moves behind them; it covers the sun. His mind is still swimming. A faint gust sweeps the pavement. Leaves dance.

She asks him for coffee and time.

He agrees to catch up.

He thinks of the passage of time. Two years. Today, a moment, at least. He'd grant her that time, regardless of anything. He'd lied. Twenty four months. To himself, he had lied.

He'd never forgotten. He couldn't, and hadn't. He'd said that he had. Promises, claims, absurd hopes.

 _I want to forget her._

Tricks of the light.

* * *

 ** _Hope you enjoyed. I take requests._**

 ** _\- Celestos_**


	2. Atem x Mana, Sans Caramel Waffles

_**A short drabble for aquaburst07 on tumblr.**_

 _ **Vaseshipping, Atem x Mana. Quite light-hearted. A modern day AU: imagine two twelve-year-olds in a coffee shop…**_

* * *

 **Sans Caramel Waffles**

"You're disgusting, you know that?"

Atem admits he's stupid and a fool and all of the other synonyms for the term for laughing along with it, but it's what he does, and he can't help it. He's going along, but it's Mana.

Sometimes, it was as if Mana and he came were from two different planets and Earth was neither one's home. It certainly explained things. She could have had green skin and his could have been pink, and they could have had ten or twenty eyes compared to everyone else's plain old two, and yet, they'd still have something in common.

She almost swivels on her bar stool, childishly leaning on the counter-table with one elbow once the spin had finished. Her smirk stays as is. He knows it; Mana lives for danger, even if that danger was just impersonating monkeys inside a coffee shop. She craves it and breathes it, that he knows. She'd said a few times that she would die without it.

(She'd said that more than a few times, actually, but it was Mana. He was only happy to tolerate.)

Yugi had questioned how or why he did it, but a friendly nudge and a mention of Anzu - so Atem had learned - seemed to leave him with an answer of sorts. His twin wasn't all that different from him, no matter how much he denied it.

"You're just flat out wrong, Atem, and you know that."

She swings one leg over the other, completely ignoring of everything round her, accidentally bopping a bald-headed man in the process. It's Atem that apologises, sheepish but thankful that he goes back to his paper and leaves them alone.

He should tell her to be more careful - the last thing he needs is complaints about 'damn kids and their manners these days' - but what he should do and what he wants are two different things. Atem's a believer in justice, but with Mana, it slides.

There's a small sound, porcelain on wood, once-twice, as an aproned employee brings them their drinks. He's the one that thanks first, then Mana - she's not the sort to be left in the dust, after all.

He looks at her - careless as ever - and thinks he should have lent her some extra for caramel waffles. He always received more pocket money than her, besides, and what he received, he mostly put aside, while she spent.

Maybe that was her fault, but it was the way she was. As long as they had enough for days like this one, both would be fine.

Would Mahad mind that she would be late? Her tutor might wait, but if he told her parents…

He doesn't feel like reminding her.

She turns to her cup, picking it up with both hands at once. Clearly, she's happy. It's warm, just as she likes it. Far more content, she takes a deep breath, inhaling the scent of hot chocolate, the old smirk giving way to sweet bliss.

Atem liked it simple.

His relief was short-lived. The smirk was back on her face seconds later.

"I just don't understand how on earth you can actually _like_ tea."

* * *

 _ **note**_

 _ **I put 'Atem and Mana' into an anagram generator, and one of the things I got was 'A Damn Tea Man'. (laughs)**_

 _ **Love, Celestos**_


	3. Yugi x Anzu, Three Steps: A Run

**_Haven't done these in a while. Requested by aquaburst07 on tumblr._**

 ** _Peachshipping, Yugi x Anzu. Originally 'a walk', but when does a walk turn into a run?_**

* * *

 **three steps; a run**

He thinks it's a little strange that she's not looking back at him like she usually does when she talks; she's three steps ahead and he can hear her still, but the words will get lost in the wind if he loses pace.

She's always waited. She used to tease him, too, about his height and him being slower with the shortness of his legs. He'd laughed with it, too, and then jogged on ahead of her, calling her to catch him. It was childish, even as teenagers, he admits.

He misses those silly occasions as much as he misses the familiar weight of the Puzzle around his neck. Sometimes, he wakes up and waits to hear the voice of his partner again, or at least the reassuring jangle of chains as his hands move and the metal jostles. It's strange, indeed, being this way again, but he knows that he isn't alone. He knows that he never will be.

Anzu is still walking, three steps ahead, almost four. He speeds up his own walk; he knows he can catch up.

It's trivial, this distance. Three steps is enough for anyone, and anyone can close the gap.

He, too, has a gap that needs filling; one he's not spoken of much in the past. Pushed aside and forgotten in the midst of adventures with spirits and sandstorms, he'd left it forgotten. In the depths of chaos, with the fate of the world in his hands, and the Pharaoh's, it had been for the best.

The gap has remained. The storm has blown over, and now he has to face it again. He knows it, and he lets it claw at him.

He could run; he could close the gap and tell her. He could tell her to stop; to stay here with him, and not leave him so many more than three steps away. Her dream is more than a marathon, and he'll never catch her again if she sprints.

Even so, he can see the swish of her hair and the strength in her legs. Her dream is more than a definition of who she is; her dream is a passion that shapes her. He can't let her stay.

Anzu is a woman that goes with the wind, and he's known her for years. He knows that if there's a choice between walking and running, she doesn't go lightly. She has hope in her heart and a future to chase. He knows that. He knows her, and hates himself for it.

Some day, the gap will be filled. He'll forget about her and watch her on stage, with her dream in her arms and the world at her feet. She'll be tired from the run, but her heart will be screaming with glory. He'll see her one day and give her all the congratulations he has; she will some day slow down and walk when she can run no longer, but she'll take a lover's hand then, and she'll walk with the sun in her eyes.

It's beginning to set, and the city shines gold.

Still, there's a faint breeze, and there's light.

And it's before Yugi can gather his thoughts and try to catch up that Anzu turns around, and takes his hand once again, and she tells him to run. She smiles like a child, and he doesn't let go.

When the time comes, the distance increases. Yet with countless miles in between them, on opposite sides of the world, neither one has to chase.

Both let each other be caught.


	4. Atem x Mana, Sand, River and Sun

_**Working on some more of these.**_

 _ **Vaseshipping, Atem x Mana. Kind of AU-ish, just wanted something to fit the 'crying' prompt.**_

* * *

 **sand, river and sun**

She last saw him three sunrises past. There has been no twist of dark in the air, no faint smell of smoke, and her heart has been devoid of that small spark of chaos that has made her the girl that she is.

She's alone without the mentor that made her, and a palace's worth of guards and safe-keepers aren't enough to replace him. She's thrown off their hands and pushed through their hold. She won't be confined; even if there is no hope screaming, she can't help but let it all out.

Bitter, the water still falls.

Whatever she had, that thing she called 'strength'; it isn't there now. She's like a child before the eyes of the Pharaoh, and it makes her ashamed. She knows, she has to stand up and stay strong, and pull herself together. She has to take back her staff and hold it close, and to never let go. She has to stand her ground, but she can't.

She could have helped, but she's lost him, and it's hopeless. She chokes through her tears.

"I know it. He's gone, and he's not coming back."

Her voice skips and breaks, like the river running over a stone. To him, she has always been the cool of the Nile; the blood that runs through his heart and the smile that refreshes him, even if that look is as small and as brief as a splash.

Her tears are saltwater. He wants to dry her eyes, but for once, he doesn't know if he can.

It hurts him, more than a wound on his flesh. Even with the sting of the pain, he doesn't know what to say. He has been raised to reign a thousand ways, to judge men as a God on Earth, to sentence the guilty. He has been told that his voice must be harsh, that he must be strength incarnate. His eyes must be sharp and his arms must be spears. His brilliance must be that of the sun.

He wants to put down the weapons.

His heart burns with pain; pain for Mana, pain for the apprentice and the child that she was, and for the woman and the magician she'll be. He knows she can make it alive, and she has the strength to stand in her legs. She has the light in her eyes to look forth at the sun and shine with that same brightness, and to illuminate the whole world in its future. She is the river, and like a silvery rush, she will run.

Mahad will be like the sand. He is something that neither can hold; something that surrounds. Gold slips though the hands and falls, but remains on the ground. His memory is a world of small grains that no man can ever truly comprehend.

 _If he is the sand, and she is the river, and I am the sun, then some day, she will stand in the desert, and I will bring her the warmth._


	5. Priest Seto x Atem, Ash

_Request I got on Tumblr courtesy of an anonymous._

 _Scandalshipping, Priest Seto x Atem. Set after Atem's 'death'/sealing in the puzzle; continuing a legacy is like keeping a flame burning and refusing to let it go out._

* * *

ash

Seto had never woken up with so much dust on his hands.

He had lain by the oasis for half the day, pondering things any other would have called 'foolish'. Chasing away the attendants, he'd fled for some solitude under the shade and the sun, with only the sun-god to look down on him, to be his companion.

He had stared into the water and then further out, into the expanses of sand. Golden, pale brown, the colours of skin and pale fruit; the grains had shifted and given him comfort as his fingers had drawn themselves through it.

It was strange, he thought, that something like sand could be so serene. Sand was steadfast, eternal, never disappearing - yet soft, so soft, so reminding.

He recalled the feeling of something else in his hands, something warmer, the same tone as his skin, both kissed by the gold of the sun. A hand had taken another, once.

He found himself thinking of pomegranate-red eyes.

It was a thing of the past.

What he'd held in his hands had been the dust of what was long gone, but the sand was eternal, and as it seeped through his fingers, he'd thought of the bitterness of ash; that of a fight lost and of a holy flame that had burst out brightly before fading away.

Like thin, light linen, he felt it slink away, back to the ground from whence it had come.

There was a faint smell of smoke in the air.

Gone was the past, like that ash, like those times. There would forever be sand, no matter how many times the floods of the Nile came and went; season by season, the sands would go on forever. The desert was their land; their place, the thing that embodied their stable conditions. His people, their people, were a steadfast kind, shifting with the winds like the sand, and yet eternally there.

 _We will continue your legacy, just like I promised. I'll continue it for you; and when we meet again, I promise, I will have died knowing that I did my best, and that I did it for you._

The dust blew onward, free from his fingers. A faint breeze rippled the water in front of him, his horse braying for him.

Seto knew it was no use staying. He knew he was needed to rebuild their land, stronger than it had been, out from the ashes and dust. They had to conquer the sands, to bring back the glory of dreams; to carry on with the wish of the one who had died so that their kingdom would live once again.

He had a duty; he had to make him proud. The ashes of battle would be blown away, with time, by the wind, but the fire within his chest would not be extinguished. His resolve would go on.

Love's ash would be a noble bird, and fly on beyond, just like his foolish heart had once hoped to fly.


End file.
